Hip stretch

If you're looking for hip stretches, you've come to the right place! This can be a difficult area to keep flexible, indeed many flexibility programmes pretty much ignore it.br>
Any time you perform hip stretches is also advisable to loosen up your hamstrings - indeed, it's hard not to do so to a certain extent.

To increase your flexibility in this area, try the following hip stretches:

• Groin stretch: This will loosen up the whole area. Sit on the floor, with your back up straight. Bend your knees and bring the soles of your feet together. Grasp your ankles and slide your feet in towards your groin while exhaling, allowing your knees to drop towards the floor. If you have good flexibility and find this relatively easy, you can gently push down on your knees with your elbows.
  
  
• Hurdlers stretch: This will mostly work your hamstrings. Sit on the floor, one leg straight out, the other bent, with the sole of the foot tucked into the opposite thigh. Extend the arms high above the head, then gently lean forward over the extended leg and reach out towards your foot.
  
  Exhale slowly and allow your chest to sink down towards your thigh. Hold for 20 seconds, then slowly sit up. Switch legs then repeat.
  
  
• Lying Hamstring: Lie on your back, and grasp the back of one thigh with both hands. With the leg slightly bent, pull the thigh towards you until your leg is 90-degrees to the floor. Slowly straighten your knee. Hold for 20 seconds, then release the leg. Switch legs and repeat.
  
  Finally, repeat the above stretch, but with a variation - this will loosen up the iliotibial band, a long tendon that runs down the outside of your thigh to your knee.